‘What about you, Sir Manju?’ Javed asked. ‘Other day I called, and you didn’t pick up the phone.’
‘The pictures.’
‘You saw a picture? With who?’
‘Alone.’
‘Only mental patients go to the movies … alone,’ Javed said. ‘Come to Navi Mumbai and watch movies with me.’
Manju felt a sense of elation. ‘Really?’ he asked, hoping that Javed would say more good things about him. He moved closer.
Only the sound of the laughing warned Manju that Javed’s mood had changed, and that he had turned into the other ‘J.A.’ — the nasty one.
‘U-ha, U-ha. Hey, Tendulkar. Find a new mirror.’
‘Find a new mirror?’ Manju asked. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you’re not that good-looking. And you’re always looking at yourself in the mirror. Even in the cinema hall I bet you were looking at yourself in any glass surface. Right? U-ha, U-ha.’
Manju had to contract the muscles in his throat to avoid replying to that. He felt the same numbness in his face and neck that he did when his father slapped him.
They walked, at first in silence, towards the train station. But suddenly Javed’s face and mood changed, and he became playful again.
‘Are you going to practise, Captain? Are you?’
Manju said nothing.
‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘No. You’re not, Captain.’
‘I’ll find a way to study chemistry and practise cricket.’
‘No. There is another reason, Captain,’ Javed said, ‘that I had to leave cricket, and it’s the same reason you too will have to leave, sooner or later.’
Javed tickled him in the ribs.
‘When we were in Uttar Pradesh, my father asked me if I wasn’t interested in girls.’
As they crossed the road, an autorickshaw came between them; Manju hurried to catch up with Javed.
‘And you said?’
‘And I said, if I’m not, what is your problem, Daddy?’
‘And he said?’
‘Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t cost me any money. Man, I love my father sometimes.’
Javed laughed: Manju could smell fat and meat and freedom.
‘One time the wicket-keeper from that Dadar school asked me, you’re a gay or what? Manju, has no one yet asked you?’
The question burned away the sun and the day; now Manju felt small and dark and as though a litre of pink disinfectant had invaded his stomach.
‘Why … they would … me?’
He wished he had said it louder. He wished that Radha were here, by his side. But the only one here was Javed, grinning.
‘Manju, stop being a slave. What’s your problem if someone calls you a gay?’
Manju felt the sweat on his forehead.
‘I know you’re scared of everything, so I don’t even talk about anything to do with sex when you’re near me. But why just look at everything? It’s not normal. Do something.’
‘Fuck you.’
Now run.
‘I’m asking you, what are you scared of? It’s all normal, man. Don’t let them brain-control you.’
But Manju stood frozen: Javed, as if he had read his mind, was laughing at him. U-ha. U-ha. In the coarseness of Javed’s croak, in the length of pink gum that showed above his canines, Manju saw nothing but the contempt of one who knew more about the animal truths of sex and life.
‘Fuck you.’
Without looking back, Manju ran to Vashi station, boarded a train and sat still all the way to Chembur. At dinner he looked at his father, and said, ‘I’m going to cricket practice every evening from now till Selection Day.’
Mohan Kumar sighed.
‘And will you un-shave? But I forgive you, Manju. Just promise me one thing, son. Promise me and Lord Subramanya you won’t learn to drive a car, but from now on will stay pure and think only of cricket.’
Manju promised everything.
•
He loved playing tricks on her, her father. One morning every April he filled the house with green mangoes and then led her in, blindfolded, while the scent of raw fruit drove her mad. As his hand moved down his stomach, on which he could feel the downy hair that was growing up from his groin, Manju thought again of her childhood. Not his — hers. His mother’s. Lying in bed with his eyes closed, he thought of the stories his mother had told her sons about her life in her father’s home, and through which Manju understood what a childhood must be like for everyone else. His mother had loved her father more than anyone else on earth. He was tall, fair, handsome — people in the village used to call him their ‘European uncle’, because he was so light-skinned — and he loved her back. Each time he went to the market he returned with toys for her, but would say nothing to her, just leave them, as if by accident, on the dining table, or lying on the floor: and how she screamed with joy when she discovered them. One day, her father and she — just the two of them, no sisters or mother with them — took a bus and went up a mountain and all the way to the great temple of Tirupati. Yes! Just the two of them. Still rubbing his stomach hair, Manju nuzzled against his cotton pillow. This was the only place he had ever felt entirely safe: his mother’s childhood.
•
Sitting at a terminal in the computer lab at Ruia College, he had been googling morgues in Manchester in a bid to revive the attractions of forensic science, until the noise from outside made it impossible.
It was the day of Durga Puja: the festival of the Mother Goddess.
Carrying his three textbooks, he came out of the college, and headed towards the source of the noise — the makeshift wooden pandals, each adorned with its twelve-foot idol of Ma Durga slaying the pitch-black buffalo-demon, in front of which devotees beat drums and burnt incense.
He stopped in front of the Matunga Gymkhana to watch the girls in white playing tennis. He looked at the legs of one of the girls, pale brown, glossy, with strong diamond-shaped calf muscles, and then up at her tight T-shirt, from which a golden necklace dangled.
‘Wrong game, Tendulkar.’
A Honda City had stopped beside him, and a girl held a door open for Manju.
‘Don’t act as if you don’t know me now,’ Sofia said, as Manju looked about. ‘Get in.’
‘Is Radha here with you?’
‘Why should he be? I was just going to Ram Ashraya to meet a friend. Get in. Manju, don’t worry. Your father isn’t here. That man tried to kill me in Ballard Estate. I feel sorry for you. Get in.’
The door was still open and the car was holding up traffic; so, Manju got in, closed the door behind him with one hand, and sat with the textbooks pressed against his chest.
Sofia smiled. He tried to read her mind.
‘Tomorrow is your big Selectors’ Day, isn’t it? Everyone is so nervous right now. Are you nervous?’
As the car moved, Manju felt his stomach starting to churn.
‘Hey. I asked, are you freaked out by Selectors’ Day? I know that they asked you to come even though you’re one year younger than everyone else.’
He wanted to raise his palm and just block Sofia out.
‘No. I’m not nervous.’
‘Salim,’ the girl told her driver, ‘this boy has no blood pressure. Look how cool he is the day before Selectors’ Day.’ Leaning in to him she whispered: ‘Manju, be honest with me. I’m on your side, understand?’
‘Yes,’ Manju said.
The traffic was bad; a colossal image of Durga, seated on the back of a lorry, was approaching, surrounded by chanting and singing devotees, some of whom carried their own smaller idols of the Mother Goddess.